Scottish football needs to change

[AUFC 1910]

It is clear to see the decline in our game from top to bottom, but more so in the middle ranks.

 

From mid table Prem to mid table league 1 who could honestly say that the standard has gone up any at their clubs?

 

The beating heart of Scottish football is slowly dying.

 

In my opinion there are 2 things that Scottish football should start with.

 

1. Summer football.

Better weather should encourage more support, as should not competing with the elite leagues in Europe, and ideally would also lead to better TV deals and better sponsorship.

 

 

2. Full time clubs.

Watching Friday nights game and also our game on ALBA last night was woeful football. No entertainment whatsoever. Tactically inept. If all clubs are full time, with the requirement of at least 15 full time players in the first team squad, we should end up with better coaching, tactics, game plans, set pieces etc. On the budgets side, every club within their means and it might end up with full time kids with a sprinkling of part time journeymen but surely it would help the standard of these younger players and also help out our national team and game.

 

That's my thoughts. I think it would be start.

 

This season has been a right eye opener for me and completely changed my thinking on the game.

 

We were playing Dundee United last night. The mighty European conquerers. It was total non football. An excuse for entertainment and both teams had EVERYTHING to play for.

 

Surely something drastic needs to happen

[Jan Vojáček]

I think Scottish football is in a pretty decent place at the moment. We already play a season from July to May, and summer football would create havoc when it came to postponed fixtures - games called off now can be played on April evenings, games called off in September/October could face multiple call offs. That's before you get to the stage where we are forced into shopping centres in the most miserable months of the year, and the mess with transfer windows.

I hate the idea that summer football would appeal to the English. Who cares about them watching? Why should we build our league around armchair fans from a different country? It's a complete inferiority complex we seem to have. Scottish football should be what's best for the clubs up here and their fans. Not David, 41, 'Arsenal fan' from Solihull who has been to about 7 live football matches in his life.  

Certainly our team this season is better than last season, and the season before. I can say that honestly. I'd imagine Partick Thistle fans would agree, so too Aberdeen fans. Livingston fans would, Alloa maybe too. Some teams have a good squad by their standards this year, some don't. That's football. 

Every club being full-time is nothing like feasible. All that will do is kill clubs and turn players away from the game. You say that it will improve things, but then say that it's because you watched two poor games this weekend featuring 3 full-time teams, and 1 hybrid p/t f/t team. Imagine telling guys to give up their day job to play football full-time for us for about £300 a week. Never going to happen.

This reads like a Daily Record piece about the armageddon we faced when Rangers collapsed. The Championship has been exciting this year, the battle at the bottom especially. In fact every single club from the Championship to League 2 still has a mathematical chance (however slim) of either going up, or going down. That says to me that things are pretty good.

[spratte]

i'd include the bottom half of the spl in this. i know this may go against the grain but im happy with our league structure, yeah of course a 16 team top league would help my club but it would make things much duller. the championship is a great league to play in.

[Scosha]

Summer football can get in the sea.

[Pearbuyerbell]

Making every team Full-time would kill Scottish football.  

[invergowrie arab]

It's absolutely fine.

[Broken Algorithms]

6 minutes ago, Sonsteam of 08 said:

I think Scottish football is in a pretty decent place at the moment. We already play a season from July to May, and summer football would create havoc when it came to postponed fixtures - games called off now can be played on April evenings, games called off in September/October could face multiple call offs. That's before you get to the stage where we are forced into shopping centres in the most miserable months of the year, and the mess with transfer windows.

I hate the idea that summer football would appeal to the English. Who cares about them watching? Why should we build our league around armchair fans from a different country? It's a complete inferiority complex we seem to have. Scottish football should be what's best for the clubs up here and their fans. Not David, 41, 'Arsenal fan' from Solihull who has been to about 7 live football matches in his life.  

Certainly our team this season is better than last season, and the season before. I can say that honestly. I'd imagine Partick Thistle fans would agree, so too Aberdeen fans. Livingston fans would, Alloa maybe too. Some teams have a good squad by their standards this year, some don't. That's football. 

Every club being full-time is nothing like feasible. All that will do is kill clubs and turn players away from the game. You say that it will improve things, but then say that it's because you watched two poor games this weekend featuring 3 full-time teams, and 1 hybrid p/t f/t team. Imagine telling guys to give up their day job to play football full-time for us for about £300 a week. Never going to happen.

This reads like a Daily Record piece about the armageddon we faced when Rangers collapsed. The Championship has been exciting this year, the battle at the bottom especially. In fact every single club from the Championship to League 2 still has a mathematical chance (however slim) of either going up, or going down. That says to me that things are pretty good.

A good post with a few points I'd disagree with myself, but I get where you're coming from. 

I'd be all for Summer football, and making things a bit more casual. Introducing alcohol (Championship downwards) and Summer football would be good. I'd rather we offered it as an alternative draw to people in Scotland, rather than being forced to go toe to toe with the EPL, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern and Dortmund. However, on the other hand, if you asked me when the last time I watched a game from the Republic of Ireland, who have Summer football, as an alternative, I'd hold my hands up and say it's something I'd never done. If you look at places like the match of the day facebook page, the majority of the comments on any Scottish football related involve some English person, usually a Man United fan from somewhere like Milton Keynes who has done a tour of Old Trafford once saying "SCOTTISH FOOTBALL LOL PUB LEAGUE".

I can't see anything changing on that front. 

As for the standard of the football itself, Rovers are probably the biggest contrasting team between last season and this season. The tail end of last season was by far and away the best football we've had at Starks in years. Players like Aiden Connolly, Louis Longridge, Ryan Hardie among others all looked positive, creative players. This season we've been the opposite but in a league like ours, that's often commonplace. 

Every club being full time isn't even something remotely considerable. 

[AUFC 1910]

So everyone on here that has posted so far is happy with the standard of football on show? Really? Are Dundee United fans happy to scrape a draw away to a turgid Ayr United team?

Where is the bench mark set - better than dog food? Less shite than our competition?

If you are all happy then I stand corrected.

[Jan Vojáček]

2 minutes ago, AUFC 1910 said:

So everyone on here that has posted so far is happy with the standard of football on show? Really? Are Dundee United fans happy to scrape a draw away to a turgid Ayr United team?

Where is the bench mark set - better than dog food? Less shite than our competition?

If you are all happy then I stand corrected.

You are mixing up the standard of Scottish football as a whole with the standard of a single team. This Dundee United team is muck, just as this year's Celtic team is excellent, and this year's Livingston team is excellent, and this year's Raith team is fairly rank.

[k-ton]

Thank god someone was brave enough to raise this issue, a thread about it is long overdue.

[roman_bairn]

i'd include the bottom half of the spl in this. i know this may go against the grain but im happy with our league structure, yeah of course a 16 team top league would help my club but it would make things much duller. the championship is a great league to play in.

Agree. Changes have been made and I think the Championship is a great league with the play offs being a major addition. Problem is it's not really clear what more can be done whilst you have the old firm.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

I kinda get where you are coming from however full time football for all clubs in not feasible financially.

The Big problem for the Premiership is lack of competition. I read stats saying it was the least competitive league in Europe this year. Worrying. Also can't see Celtic not winning next 4 or 5 so that won't change soon. And a decent side they are however has 2 really embarrassing results in Europe ie. Red Imps Ills and Barca so not a great Celtic team.

I think the Championship will be more competitive next year. That's Hibs, Hearts and Rangers all away and no matter what folk said their budgets gave them an edge. Hopefully Dundee Utd will improve too and St Mirren will be better from start next year.

Lower down the leagues are never going to be great but no concerns over that as the teams are competitive with each other.

Big concerns for me are that over 100k supporters watch Old Firm at home. Why do Scottish people not like their local teams ?

And that our national team is getting worse and worse. I don't know the answer to either though.

[jagfox]

Is the standard of manager in the Scottish game an issue? Smacks of jobs for the boys.

[Daydream]

10 minutes ago, AUFC 1910 said:

So everyone on here that has posted so far is happy with the standard of football on show? Really? Are Dundee United fans happy to scrape a draw away to a turgid Ayr United team?

Where is the bench mark set - better than dog food? Less shite than our competition?

If you are all happy then I stand corrected.

The overall standard has fallen over the last 10-15 years but is that not down to money as much as anything else?  I think we are stuck with the level tbh.

I would be up for changing the season from February to October ("summer football") as it makes sense to use the months with the highest average temperatures. Also, we'd be the only British football on the TV for a bit of the summer which might generate a bit of interest.  

I'd also advocate a bigger league where you only play each other once both home and away.  4 times + cups is too much IMO.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

11 minutes ago, Sonsteam of 08 said:

You are mixing up the standard of Scottish football as a whole with the standard of a single team. This Dundee United team is muck, just as this year's Celtic team is excellent, and this year's Livingston team is excellent, and this year's Raith team is fairly rank.

Celtic and Livingston have had good domestic seasons. Don't forget that our best team by light years lost in Gibralter though. I can't see a positive in that.

Also lost 7 0 to a Barca team in decline. Also cant see positives in that.

I can see Celtic going through next season unbeaten in Scotland too.

[itzdrk]

Summer football is just a really bad idea.  

[Meathead]

'Summer football' would need to run from January - December just to fit in everything we have now. It'd be fucking shite and wouldn't improve anything.

[Jimmy85]

Scottish football is fine. Ayr Utd are shite. 

[St. Jude]

A 16 team top league should improve the 4 teams which would come up from the championship but at the cost of what is a really exciting league. 3 teams battling for play off positions and 4 teams battling to avoid relegation and play off places with 3 games to go is shaping up to be a good finale.

I'm not keen on summer football for professional teams but is it worth looking at for youth leagues. I'm a bit out of touch with youth leagues but when i grew up I played 11 a-side from the age of 9 on shite pitches in the middle of winter. I lost count of how many times the manager said to us "right this isny a park for playing fitba, play it long into the corners and squeeze the game up there" this absolutely did not help anyone develop technical skills. If youth leagues are still the same this needs changed and summer football on better parks, in better weather might help this.

[AUFC 1910]

It all boils down to what you want.

 

If you want the standard to improve then you need to start somewhere, it won't happen overnight.

 

If you want competitive leagues then you keep them small but does it help the standard?

 

If you are happy with the supporter numbers then leave it alone, if not then do something about it.

 

Evolve or die.

 

Look at other sports, cricket for example.

 

Look at all the other phone makers being led by Apple.

 

Look at all the hoovers that are bagels now, well done Dyson.

 

We need to evolve as a game.

 

Wee changes here and there are fine if overall the majority are happy but are they?